Clever Elsie

A fairy tale retold from Grimms' Fairy Tales, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

This fairy tale was collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in nineteenth-century Germany and published in their famous collection. It is a humorous story about a woman who worries so much about things that may never happen that she forgets to live in the present. The Grimms gathered these tales from oral tradition, and "Clever Elsie" has been told for generations as a cautionary tale about overthinking. This reader reflects the language and customs of its era.

Band

Yellow · Emerging readers, about 6 to 8

Length

medium · about 595 words in 6 sections · 4 pictures

Source

Grimms' Fairy Tales, Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm · Project Gutenberg

First published

see the About page in the reader

Regions

Canada · United States

Included formats

• · Web reader and PDF
• · EPUB for e-readers
• · Home-print sheet
• · Folded booklet
• · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
• · Worksheet
• · Quick Check (8 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script
• · Colouring page

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.